[ QUOTE ]
We cannot look from the sides as we are led towards crisis over Iran

Bush and Blair have spent four years preparing an onslaught that is about oil, rather than non-existent nuclear weapons

John Pilger
Friday April 13, 2007
The Guardian

The Israeli journalist Amira Hass describes the moment her mother, Hannah, was marched from a cattle train to the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. "They were sick and some were dying," she said. "Then my mother saw these German women looking at the prisoners. This image became very formative in my upbringing, this despicable 'looking from the side'."

It is time we in Britain stopped looking from the side. We are being led towards perhaps the most serious crisis in modern history as the Bush/Cheney/Blair "long war" edges closer to Iran for no reason other than that nation's independence from rapacious America. The safe delivery of the 15 British sailors into the hands of Rupert Murdoch and his rivals (until their masters got the wind up) is both farce and distraction. The Bush administration, in secret connivance with Blair, has spent four years preparing for "Operation Iranian Freedom". Forty-five cruise missiles are primed to strike. According to General Leonid Ivashov, Russia's leading strategic thinker: "Nuclear facilities will be secondary targets, and there are 20 such facilities. Combat nuclear weapons may be used, and this will result in the radioactive contamination of all the Iranian territory, and beyond."

And yet there is a surreal silence in Britain, except for the noise of "news" in which powerful broadcasters gesture cryptically at the obvious, but dare not make sense of it lest the one-way moral screen erected between us and the consequences of an imperial foreign policy collapses, and the truth is revealed.

"The days of Britain having to apologise for the British empire are over," declared Gordon Brown to the Daily Mail. "We should celebrate!" In Late Victorian Holocausts, the historian Mike Davis documents that as many as 21 million Indians died unnecessarily in famines criminally imposed by British policies. And since the formal demise of that glorious imperium, declassified official files make clear that British governments have borne "significant responsibility" for the direct or indirect deaths of between 8.6 million and 13.5 million people throughout the world - from imperial military interventions and at the hands of regimes strongly supported by Britain. The historian Mark Curtis calls these victims "unpeople". "Rejoice!" said Thatcher. "Celebrate!" says the paymaster of Blair's bloodbath. Spot the difference.

We need to look behind the one-way moral screen, urgently. Last October, the Lancet published research led by Johns Hopkins University in the US that calculated the deaths of 655,000 Iraqis as a direct result of the Anglo-American invasion. Downing Street acolytes derided the study as "flawed". They were lying. They knew that the chief scientific adviser to the Ministry of Defence, Sir Roy Anderson, had backed the survey, describing its methods as "robust" and "close to best practice", and that other government officials had secretly approved the "tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones". The figure of Iraqi deaths is now estimated at close to a million.

"This Labour government, which includes Gordon Brown as much as it does Tony Blair," wrote Richard Horton, the editor of the Lancet, "is party to a war crime of monstrous proportions. Yet our political consensus prevents any judicial or civil society response. Britain is paralysed by its own indifference." Such is the scale of the crime and of our "looking from the side".

As hysteria is again fabricated, for Iraq, read Iran. According to the former US treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, the Bush cabal decided to attack Iraq on "day one" of Bush's administration, long before 9/11 - and it beggars belief that Blair did not know that. The main reason was oil. O'Neill was shown a Pentagon document entitled Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts, which outlined the carve-up of Iraq's oilfields among the major Anglo-American companies. Under a law written by American and British officials, the Iraqi puppet regime is about to hand over the extraction of the largest concentration of oil on earth to Anglo-American companies.

Nothing like this piracy has happened before in the modern Middle East. Across the Shatt al-Arab waterway the other prize: Iran's vast oilfields. Just as non-existent weapons of mass destruction or facile concerns for democracy had nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq, so non-existent nuclear weapons have nothing to do with an American onslaught on Iran. Unlike Israel and the United States, Iran has abided by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has never cited Iran for diverting its civilian programme to military use. For the past three years IAEA inspectors have said that they have been allowed to "go anywhere". The recent security council sanctions against Iran are the result of Washington's bribery.

Until recently the British were unaware that their government was one of the world's most consistent abusers of human rights and backers of state terrorism. Few knew that British intelligence set out systematically to destroy secular Arab nationalism and in the 1980s recruited and trained young Muslims as part of a $4bn Anglo-American-backed jihad against the Soviet Union. The fuse of the bombs that killed 52 Londoners was lit by "us".

In my experience, most people do not contort their morality and intellect to comply with the double standards of rampant power and the media's notion of approved evil - of worthy and unworthy victims. They would, if they knew, grieve for all the lives, families, careers, hopes and dreams destroyed by Blair and Bush. The sure evidence is the British public's wholehearted response to the 2004 tsunami, shaming that of the government. Certainly, they would agree with Robert Jackson, the chief counsel of the United States at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders. "Crimes are crimes," he said, "whether we do them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct which we would not be willing to have invoked against us."

Like Henry Kissinger and Donald Rumsfeld, who dare not travel to certain countries for fear of being prosecuted as war criminals, Blair as a private citizen may no longer be untouchable. On March 20 Baltasar Garzon, the tenacious Spanish judge who pursued General Pinochet, called for indictments against those responsible for "one of the most sordid and unjustifiable episodes in recent human history" - Iraq. Five days later, the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court, to which Britain is a signatory, said that Blair could one day face war-crimes charges.

These are critical changes in the way the sane world thinks - again, thanks to the reich of Blair/Bush. However, we also live in the most dangerous of times. On April 6 Blair accused "elements of the Iranian regime" of "financing, arming and supporting terrorism in Iraq". He offered no evidence, and the MoD has none. This is the same Goebbels-like refrain with which he and his coterie, Brown included, brought an epic bloodletting to Iraq. How long will the rest of us continue looking from the side?

· This is an edited version of an article in the current New Statesman; John Pilger's new film, The War on Democracy, will be previewed at the National Film Theatre in London on May 11 www.johnpilger.com (http://www.johnpilger.com)

<hr /></blockquote>

Bobbyrx

04-14-2007, 10:03 AM

You actually believe this garbage?!?!...."The recent security council sanctions against Iran are the result of Washington's bribery". So Iran is innocent, Ahmadinejad's own words about what he wants done to the West and Israel are all made up, and they have no intention of making nukes. How much oil have the western companies gotten out of Iraq so far?
"Until recently the British were unaware that their government was one of the world's most consistent abusers of human rights and backers of state terrorism. Few knew that British intelligence set out systematically to destroy secular Arab nationalism and in the 1980s recruited and trained young Muslims as part of a $4bn Anglo-American-backed jihad against the Soviet Union. The fuse of the bombs that killed 52 Londoners was lit by "us"."
So 9/11 was our fault. We are the true terrorists. What utter b.s.

Gayle in MD

04-14-2007, 10:38 AM

Right, we and the English have never killed an arab, and Saddam had nukes, Scientists haven't been bribed, e-mails just vanished into cyberspace, Libby wasn't protecting Cheney, Plame wasn't covert, Bush didn't get special treatment in the Reserves, Halliburton isn't making a fortune off Iraq, Gonzales REALLY can't remember, AG's weren't fired for not indicting Democrats, Delay isn't a crook, the White House had no connection to Abramoff, Rove has high integrity, Bush is a genius, Arabs are throwing roses in the streets, McCain wants another shopping stroll through baghdad, Bush didn't know anything about Abu Garibe, no one has been tortured, Saddam was best friends with Osama, there's no connection between the occupation of Iraq, and the Oil Industry....Bush is a visionary, Rice has made huge strides in diplomatic liasons and allies, the Arab World loves us, and bin Laden is scared to death, hiding in a cave, and has lost his determination, and his supporters, the rest of the World admires the U.S. more than ever before, our troops love it in Iraq, and have everything they need, the deficit will be payed off by 2010, and pigs really do fly!

You just keep on looking to the side, you're a natural at it. /ccboard/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

llotter

04-14-2007, 11:07 AM

Years ago, when I was young, it was often said by Republicans that the Democrats/Left always get us into war. I always took this as simple minded politics back then but more recently, I see the logic of this wise observation; they actually do hate America, hate Freedom, hate Capitalism and always side with America's enemies whether it's communism, Islamic terrorism or global warming, they really do what America to fail. My 'buddy' Michael Savage has it about right when he describes liberalism as a mental disorder! It often seems incurable but I don't want to give up on hope, even for Gayle.

Bobbyrx

04-14-2007, 01:40 PM

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote Gayle in MD:</font><hr>
Right, we and the English have never killed an arab, <font color="blue"> show me where we have targeted civilians </font color> and Saddam had nukes, <font color="blue"> no one said he did but everyone said he was trying to. The question was do you think Iran wants nuclear power just for light bulbs. </font color> Scientists haven't been bribed, e-mails just vanished into cyberspace, Libby wasn't protecting Cheney, <font color="blue"> proof proof proof </font color> Plame wasn't covert, <font color="blue">I never said she wasn't, just no plot to expose her </font color> Bush didn't get special treatment in the Reserves, <font color="blue"> so </font color> Halliburton isn't making a fortune off Iraq, <font color="blue"> not at all </font color> Gonzales REALLY can't remember, AG's weren't fired for not indicting Democrats, <font color="blue">they can be fired for any reason they want </font color> Delay isn't a crook, <font color="blue">how many grand juries did Earle have to come up with to indict </font color> the White House had no connection to Abramoff, <font color="blue">what politician didn't </font color> Rove has high integrity, Bush is a genius, Arabs are throwing roses in the streets, McCain wants another shopping stroll through baghdad, Bush didn't know anything about Abu Garibe, <font color="blue">So Bush order them to take naked prisoner pictures? </font color> no one has been tortured, <font color="blue"> Yea the Arab terrorists have cut off quite a few heads </font color> Saddam was best friends with Osama, <font color="blue">I missed where anyone said this one </font color> there's no connection between the occupation of Iraq, and the Oil Industry. <font color="blue"> where is the oil?? </font color> ...Bush is a visionary, Rice has made huge strides in diplomatic liasons and allies, the Arab World loves us, <font color="blue"> as much as they ever did </font color> and bin Laden is scared to death, hiding in a cave, <font color="blue"> where else would he be </font color> and has lost his determination, and his supporters, the rest of the World admires the U.S. more than ever before, <font color="blue"> who cares </font color> our troops love it in Iraq, and have everything they need, <font color="blue"> who said they did </font color> the deficit will be payed off by 2010, <font color="blue"> non story...% of GDP not out of line..only a problem if we keep spending like we are now </font color> and pigs really do fly!

You just keep on looking to the side, you're a natural at it. /ccboard/images/graemlins/smirk.gif <hr /></blockquote> <font color="blue"> and you keep not answering. Do you think we are the terrorists and Iran and Ahmadinejad are innocent victims of the evil west like the story you posted?????????? </font color>

pooltchr

04-14-2007, 05:03 PM

Bobbyrx,
You are wasting your time. Gayle has made up her mind that GW is the cause of all the ills in the world, and anyone who opposes him must be one of the good guys. This is the mentality of the extreme left. Support anyone who doesn't support the administration. 9/11 was his fault. Global Warming is his fault. Poverty is his fault. Hurricane Katrina was his fault. Get rid of him, and all the problems of the world will magically disappear.
Her backing of power hungry like-minded liberals like HC and Nancy give a pretty clear indication of how she thinks.
She just regurgitates the same old BS that the liberal left-wing whacko's spew every chance they get.
I only wonder if she will ever see the destruction they cause when they are in power.
Steve

Qtec

04-14-2007, 09:28 PM

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote pooltchr:</font><hr> Bobbyrx,
You are wasting your time. Gayle has made up her mind that GW is the cause of all the ills in the world,
<font color="blue">False. Gayle has never said that. </font color>
and anyone who opposes him must be one of the good guys. <font color="blue">Again false. </font color>
This is the mentality of the extreme left. Support anyone who doesn't support the administration.
<font color="blue"> As oppossed to the GW doctrine - " I don't care how big a crook you are, support me and I will make you lots of money!"
Enron and Ken Lay, remember them? [You know Kenny boy.] Enron and the other energy Comps got a free hand to write the Energy Bill and the WH fought tooth and nail to prevent the release documents pertaining to the negotiations.
What did they have to hide?
You might say they have " nothing " to hide. That could be true except for the fact that at the time, Enron were deliberately causing blackouts in Cali ["stealing from little old ladies"as one enron dealer is quoted saying] to make more money! </font color>
9/11 was his fault.
<font color="blue"> Now there is an argument to suggest that the Govt were lax and "not on the ball". When your top Al Q guy warns that an attack is imminent[ memo- "OBL determined to attack inside the US" ] and it happens, you can hardly claim that it came as a surprise!
After all, the buck stops with the Pres. He is responsible or used to be. </font color>
Global Warming is his fault. Poverty is his fault. Hurricane Katrina was his fault.
<font color="blue">No,no and no.
Gl warm has been going for many years. There will always be poverty and you can't blame GW for the storm but you can blame him for the utter fiasco that was and is the aftermath. </font color>
Get rid of him, and all the problems of the world will magically disappear.
<font color="blue"> Could it be any worse? Pick a guy off the street at random and you would have a better Pres. </font color>
Her backing of power hungry <font color="blue"> Power hungry enough to fix an election? </font color>like-minded liberals like HC and Nancy give a pretty clear indication of how she thinks.
She just regurgitates the same old BS that the liberal left-wing whacko's spew every chance they get.
I only wonder if she will ever see the destruction they cause when they are in power.
Steve <hr /></blockquote>

How about the the wingnut spewing of total lies? WMDs? Links to Al Q? etc
You say you are interested in the truth but you yourself continue to repeat the same old Rep denial mantra.
Mantra.
"Support the troops".
Can you imagine a GI reservist being 2 weeks away from finishing his TOD and GW says he have to stay another 3 months? Its quite possible that this soldier is now on his 2nd tour and 3rd extension! Sacrifice? [ To GW that means laying up instead of going for the green! ]
The hypocracy sometimes makes me want to puke.

Example.
When GW got caught listening in to US citizen's phone calls and reading their e-maill the Right cried loudly, " If you have nothing to hide, whats the problem. You have nothing to fear!"
Now we see that WH officials have been using RNC e-mail accounts for Federal buisiness and 5 million e-mails are gone! What do they have to hide? Libby case- e-mails gone. Plame leak? e-mails gone. Attorney case- e-mails gone, etc etc etc etc etc..............

My a$$!

The Govt has a record of deception. They have a lot to hide but I think its too late for them. The truth will out. /ccboard/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

IMO, You might not be a Rep but you are so totally anti- Dem it clouds you reasoning. Just about everything you say flies in the face of the proven facts!

Q /ccboard/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Gayle in MD

04-15-2007, 04:04 AM

It's amazing to see the same faulty premises among the Bush supporters, so blatantly displayed by the Bush Administration, lies, and denial, and false accusations, no shortage of such tactics in their statements, or yours.

Gayle in Md.

Gayle in MD

04-15-2007, 04:22 AM

OMG, where have we targeted civilians? Do you even watch the news? Here's a more recent example...than the other examples, which were reported here in our country, apparently, you only watch Fox?

These horrible things happen during war, and even more so when our soldiers are fighting in civil wars against an enemy which is hard to detect and single out from civilian population, and also, when our soldiers are not given proper training and R&amp; R, and over extended by a Commander in Chief who beats them down into the ground with redeployments, over and over again.

I think you're a neocon, which renders you unable to use intellectual powers of deduction. First you twist the meanings of my posts, then you demand answers to your inappropriate questions. Go study the facts once an a while, then ask pertinent questions, and maybe I'l take the time to answer them. Oh, and BTW, the President cannot fire AG's, and replace them with corrupt AG's who will indict for political purposes, in order to direct investigations for political purposes, against the opposing party, nor is it legal for the white House to use hidden e-mail accounts supplied by the RNC, while doing illegal White House businessin and actions to plot illegal activity. Nor is it legal for the Attorney General to lie to Congress. There is now evidence that all of this was happening. If it turns out that this is what they were about, it is obsturction of Justice, high crimes and misdemeanors, You think it should all be ignored? What a great American you are.

Amazing how you righties made such a big deal over a lie about a BJ, but none of the lies told you by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice are ever acknowleged or considered decietful, even if they do lead us into an illegal occupation of another country. In fact, almost every war includes the killing of innocent people, and the rape of women, also. The is a whole history of the West, occupying Arab countries, and killing innocent people. One would think that after decades of such carnage, some Arabs just might get pissed, unless of course, one is part of the nutty right, which resides somewhere between ignorance and denial as a way of life.

Fiasco by Thomas Ricks, also details killing innocent Iraqis, BTW, along with atleast a dozen other books, and the British, also killed innocent Iraqis in their own attempts to dictate to the Arab countries, with Churchill at the lead. I'm quite sure, judging by your posts, you haven't read anything about that though, but don't expect me to educate you on an internet forum, you'll have to do that for yourself. Just don't jump on here and sling out accusations when you obviously don't know what you're talking about.

Gayle in Md.

Gayle in MD

04-15-2007, 04:37 AM

HOPE??? What hope do we have unless we learn the truth? Without the truth, and some understanding and knowledge of our enemies, there can be no peace in the world. Peaceful negotiations, and communications are the tools of diplomacy. Reasonable people tend to study the past, to understand how we have arrived at the present. Calling others terrorist lovers because they care enough to make efforts to understand what is happening, and why, is really an intelligent way to debate... /ccboard/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

You're statements in this post are a very good example of attack the messenger when you don't have a leg to stand on. Insults flung toward those of us who can see through Bush, and his lies and failures, don't accomplish anything, but you just keep on stomping your feet and raging against reality like a five year old, I'm sure you'll solve a lot with those tactics. As Americans, our first responsibility is to be vigilent. That doesn't mean accepting sound bytes from an administration which has already been proven to have led us into war on lies.

You're the typical liberal hater. You lump all liberals into a republican manufactured BS ideology, label them as anti American, lovers of terrorists, wishing for America to fail, while failing to notice that Republicans are the BIG SPENDERS, the REDISTRITBUTION OF WEALTH lovers, the NATION BUILDERS, the WAR MONGERS, and, coincidently, /ccboard/images/graemlins/smirk.gif the LIARS.... I'd say, after reading a few of your posts, that you are against women's rights, the right to make her own personal choices regarding child bearing, and that somewhere inside your facade of being well informed, you're grabbing at straws after having voted impulsively for Republicans who left you scratching your head, wondering if maybe you shouldn't have spent a bit more time studying the candidate before entering the booth. Just one more frustrated conservative, flinging out insults at liberals, while searching desparately for a new home....another small government extremists, who can't see the difference between monetary waste due to corruption in government, and a government that lends a hand up to its citizens when they have been devastated by disaster. If it haws a flaw, remover the entire program, instead of providing the oversight, and vigilence which would allow the program to work to benefit our society. Socialist Marxists maybe? Who cares...the point is that demonizing Democrats and liberals, when it's surely obvious by now to any reasonable person that Bush lied about whom he really was during his campaign, has not conducted himself at all like a small government conservative, is in the process of Nation Building, which he said he was against, and has been supported by the Republicans on the hill all the way, who also pretended to be for small government, and liberals had warned the right that this would happen, before he ever got in there. You are probably one of those Reagan lovers who has forgotten how many tax raises it took to get this country back on track after he left office, and how many tyrants he armed during his administration, as did Bush senior, and then abandoned them to their terrorists killers afterward.

I know a frustrated self proclaimed conservative when I read one. Build yourself a new party, with a new platform, instead of attacking liberals because they knew exactly what another Bush in the White House would do. Or send in some bucks to the White Supremecist Pat Buchanon, wouldn't surprist me at all if you didn't vote for him too.

Good luck!

Good luck! /ccboard/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

Gayle in Md.

Bobbyrx

04-15-2007, 08:43 AM

Well...there you go again...
"I think you're a neocon, which renders you unable to use intellectual powers of deduction. First you twist the meanings of my posts, then you demand answers to your inappropriate questions"

I know I have an IQ of 3 but please tell me how am I twisting the meaning of your post? Your post blames the west for everything that has happened, gives a pass the the terrorists, Ahmadinejad in particular, says everything we have done is for oil and that Iran has no military intent with nuclear power. YOU POSTED IT, all I'm asking is, is this what you believe?

"OMG, where have we targeted civilians? Do you even watch the news? Here's a more recent example...than the other examples, which were reported here in our country, apparently, you only watch Fox?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/world/asia/15afghan.html?pagewanted=1&amp;_r=1&amp;hp

Where is it our POLICY to target civilians? We go out of our way to avoid them even to the endangerment of our own troops. If this happened in Afghanistan it's horrible. But we didn't go out looking to shoot civilians. Also this report is from the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. I'm glad to see you blaming us first before our side is finished investigating.

Bobbyrx

04-15-2007, 09:21 AM

Fiasco by Thomas Ricks, <font color="blue">The same Ricks who thinks that Israel would intentionally allow Hezbollah’s Katyushas to rain down on Israeli civilians. And a reporter who believes that reserve Israeli soldiers would follow orders to not attack rockets that are aimed at their children and wives. Yea I believe anything he writes
</font color> also details killing innocent Iraqis, BTW, along with atleast a dozen other books, and the British, also killed innocent Iraqis in their own attempts to dictate to the Arab countries, with Churchill at the lead. <font color="blue"> I'm talking about now not in the 1910's. FDR was at the lead for targeting civilians in WWII also <font color="blue"> </font color> </font color> I'm quite sure, judging by your posts, you haven't read anything about that though, but don't expect me to educate you on an internet forum, you'll have to do that for yourself. Just don't jump on here and sling out accusations when you obviously don't know what you're talking about.
<font color="blue"> All I asked is do you believe what you posted originally</font color>

Gayle in MD

04-15-2007, 01:46 PM

Do I believe YOUR version of the post I posted? NO.

Bobbyrx

04-15-2007, 02:58 PM

from your post:
"Iran has abided by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has never cited Iran for diverting its civilian programme to military use. For the past three years IAEA inspectors have said that they have been allowed to "go anywhere". The recent security council sanctions against Iran are the result of Washington's bribery."

Gayle in MD

04-15-2007, 03:55 PM

Do I believe that the IAEA has made that statement, yes, I know they have. You come on here and knock Thomas Ricks...? Do you have any idea how many Generals and C.I.A. agents back up his book, and everything he has written about this administration, and the war? Fiasco has been one of the most complete and correct compilations of factual information about this <font color="red">Misadministration </font color> ever written, FYI.

Apparently General Zinni agress with me, you do know who General Zinni is, I assume? Here's his version on this incompetent administration...

Today's Meet The Press

"But first, the war in Iraq. Joining us the former commander of the U.S. Central Command, General Anthony Zinni.

Welcome.

GEN. ANTHONY ZINNI (RET.): Thank you, Tim.

MR. RUSSERT: Your new version of “The Battle for Peace,” new edition, is out, and let me read from the afterword, which you write: “Nearly four years after our country invaded and occupied Iraq, Americans are facing the painful truth that our nation has failed to achieve the Bush administration’s ambitious goals for that tragic land.

“We promised the Iraqi people freedom, democracy, security and a new and far better life.

“Yet, here we are, long and difficult years into that conflict,” ... “we still have not created the state we promised them. On the contrary, our costly and valiant efforts have produced an outcome our government did not predict or intend—a failed state spinning out of control into anarchy and civil war.” What happened?

GEN. ZINNI: Well, I think, first of all, tremendous underestimating of what you would face in here. Those of us that know this region, have been involved in the planning, knew that this was a fragile society, that if you did not intervene in a way to gain control of the borders, the population, you could cause all sorts of internal issues to erupt into the kind of violence we saw.

MR. RUSSERT: You write also the following, general: “We promised to build a new Iraqi state in all” aspects “and the Iraqi people are still waiting for us to deliver on our promise.

“Why?

“We now know the answers to that question: Poor intelligence, lack of planning, faulty political motivation, incompetent or inexperienced people placed in key positions, flawed assumptions, lack of understanding of the Iraqi culture, arrogance, spin, and the list goes on and on.” That’s quite a list.

GEN. ZINNI: It is. And unfortunately, it’s true. I mean it—we, we did not prepare ourselves for this intervention. We threw away decades worth of planning and understanding of the situation. We discounted those that warned that the assumptions were too optimistic, and we had the results we have now.

MR. RUSSERT: I want to take you back to August of 2002. You were being given an award by the Veterans of Foreign War, and there you are. Vice President Cheney’s addressing the group. You have just been decorated. And this is what the vice president said on that day. Let’s listen:

(Videotape, August 26, 2002)

VICE PRES. DICK CHENEY: Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: The next year, The Washington Post, Tom Ricks wrote this story: “Cheney’s certitude bewildered the [retired General Tony] Zinni. ... ‘In my time at Centcom, I watched the intelligence, and never—not once—did it say, “He has WMD.”’

“Though retired for nearly two years, Zinni says, he remained current on the intelligence through his consulting with the CIA and the military. ‘I did consulting work for the agency, right up to the beginning of the war. I never saw anything. I’d say to analysts, “Where’s the threat?”’ Their response, he recalls, was, ‘Silence.’

“Zinni’s concern deepened as Cheney pressed on. ... Zinni’s conclusion as he slowly walked off the stage that day was that the Bush administration was determined to go to war. A moment later, he had another, equally chilling thought: ‘These guys don’t understand what’” they’re “‘getting into.’” Why do you think that they wanted to go to war?

GEN. ZINNI: Well, I think, obviously after 9/11, they saw a need to change our approaches in the Middle East, to do something dramatic. Unfortunately, I think this was the wrong place at the wrong time. And, and the philosophy or the theory behind this change that this liberation would cause a rising up and a, a, a drive for democracy in the Middle East, it, it didn’t square with the way the culture or the way the thinking and the, and the situation was that we had seen in my time. I think the WMD problem, we’d always had a suspicion of WMD programs, but never any hard evidence. And, as time went on, it seemed less and less likely there was an existing program. I mean the vice president’s term was he was “amassing” weapons of mass destruction. Clearly, there was no evidence of even an existing program, let, let alone amassing of weapons of mass destruction.

MR. RUSSERT: As you know, there’s a widely publicized search for a war czar. One of the people who turned the job down was retired General, General John Sheehan, and let me read this to you: “‘The very fundamental issues is, they don’t know where the hell they’re going,’ said retired” Gen—“Marine General John ‘Jack’ Sheehan, a former top NATO commander...

“Sheehan said he called around to get a better feel for the administration landscape. ‘There’s the” resitue—“residue of the Cheney view--‘We’re going to win, al-Qaeda’s there’—that justifies anything we did,’ he said. ‘And then there’s the pragmatist view—how the hell do we get out of Dodge and survive? Unfortunately, the people with the former view are still in the positions of most influence.’” What does that tell you?

GEN. ZINNI: Well, I know Jack Sheehan very well, and he’s a extremely competent and capable former commander of the Atlantic command. And I think he’s expressing a view that, that many of us feel. We are in a situation now where we have to rethink our strategy on how we handle this. We have caused in the center of the Middle East a place where the—we could have a sanctuary for extremist groups, where Shia and Sunni strife can spill over, where we could have an Iranian or Persian/Arab conflict, and we have to find a way to contain this now. We can’t walk away from it. We cannot continue on the same course.

What has disappointed me is there hasn’t been this debate on the strategy, on the policy, a regional strategy on policy, let alone an Iraq policy. We’re, we’re debating the tactics. The, the surge is a tactic. In what context is the surge? You can make an argument for a surge if you were going to withdraw, to cover the withdrawal, for example, or to contain, to reposition forces or to re-engage in a different way or a stronger way. And why we got caught up in the tactical debate, in my mind, is an indication that we don’t understand what we want to do. What should our Middle East policy be? What should our policy be in terms of Iraq and, and the war against the extremists out there or the conflict against extremists? We seem to be strategically adrift, in my view.

MR. RUSSERT: The Democrats have proposed legislation which would set benchmarks or guidelines for the Iraqis to meet in terms of stepping up, but also a firm date for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Is that wise?

GEN. ZINNI: No. I mean, you know, people that talk about benchmarks and withdrawals, what are we going to do, disband Centcom? You know, this was created in the, in the early ‘70s when we assumed most of the foundation for the security in this region. Centcom was created by President Carter because of our interests in this region—economic, political, security interests. They haven’t changed. If anything else, at the end of the Cold War, they were actually, I think, heightened in many respects.

We’re going to be in this part of the world. We aren’t going to leave. Now, we can readjust our strategy for Iraq. We can extricate our troops from the sectarian violence. But we’re going to have to contain the problems that could spill over and the—and cause this critical part of the world to spin out of control.

We need to rethink that kind of strategy, that kind of positioning. But more importantly, we need to rethink our relationships in that region. We have to build a collective security arrangement, a coalition arrangement to replace the one we destroyed by going into Iraq now. The, the Gulf coalition was fragile, it supported our containment of Iran and Iraq before. Most of the leaders in this region that I talk to are asking me, “What’s the new arrangement?” They are at least thinking past Iraq. They’re thinking in strategic terms, and no one’s engaging them on that level of, of discussion. There should be more in the way of burden sharing, more in the way of cooperative defense, more in the way of security assistance programs that help build the kind of region that can take care of itself with our help and with our involvement. There’s no way out of that.

MR. RUSSERT: In a briefing paper you’ve written for the World Security Institute and also in “The Battle for Peace,” you write about realities. You say our “first reality is we should acknowledge is that” there’s “no brilliant short-term strategic option or stroke of genius waiting to be unveiled.

“The second reality is that we cannot simply pull out, as much we may want to. The consequences of a destabilized and chaotic Iraq, sitting in the center of a critical region of the world, could have catastrophic implications.

“The third reality is that there is no short-term solution. It will take years to stabilize Iraq. How many? I believe at least five to seven.

And “the fourth reality is that the” problems “cannot be solved by simply addressing the security issues.”

We’re in the middle of a presidential campaign and people are saying, “Stay in Iraq, support the surge,” or “Set a date certain for withdrawal.” Is either view, in your mind, tenable?

GEN. ZINNI: No. First of all, I think that any attempt to fix Iraq, if you will, to commit to a larger involvement or intervention probably went away when we didn’t adopt the, the Baker-Hamilton recommendations. I thought that would be a start. Certainly didn’t go far enough. I think, now, the American people are becoming disillusioned. I think it’s, it’s clear, though, that we cannot leave the region, we shouldn’t naively think we’re pulling out, that this is Somalia or Vietnam. And I think the debate should be, amongst the candidates is, is how do we redesign the strategy for this region, protect our interests, create the kind of coalition involvement that would help support this and share the burden. We need that kind of imagination out there. And it isn’t just about Iraq. It’s about how we engage or what do we do about Iran and Syria, our involvement in the Middle East peace process, the rebuilding of relationships with former allies that has been stressed and strained, and, and how we deal with, a cooperative way, to counter the extremism that’s on the rise. The current bombings in, in Algeria and Morocco should, should be of great concern to us and, and to that part of the world.

MR. RUSSERT: If the president brought you in and said, “General Zinni, for one day be my war czar. Go down and talk to the Democrats in the, in the Senate and the House,” what would you tell them and what would you tell him?

GEN. ZINNI: Well, I, I would go back to the realities that, that I wrote and you mentioned. Let’s face it, we’re not going to pull out. We can’t continue to go it alone, And we can’t continue to go it the way we are doing this now. We need to redesign a strategy. We need support, bipartisan support, on that strategic design. We need to engage our, our allies in the region. We need to think through who we’re going to have a dialogue with and who we’re not, what we’re going to do about engagement in the peace process more formally and, and, and more directly involved in the mediation.

I think all these pieces that make up a strategy are necessary. We need to think through things like our security assistance programs out there. We want to build allies with the capability that can join us on any battlefield. We need to rethink how we operate in the international and regional community. We have, we have a, a United Nations that, in many ways, is broken. There’s been just criticism of the United Nations. But the United Nations offers international legitimacy in what we might do. We need to reconstruct the kind of involvement that allowed us to do the intervention in the interim years between the first Gulf war and this Gulf war. All these things and all these pieces are what goes into making up a foreign policy and a regional policy for this critical part of the world.

MR. RUSSERT: Many have suggested that the Army is near broken because of the constant redeployments. Can we sustain the number of troops we have in Iraq for years to come?

GEN. ZINNI: No. You know, what’s, what’s shocking about all this, if you look at past wars, in, in three to four years into a war, we’ve had remarkable transformations of our military. Just think about World War II, where we were when Pearl Harbor was attacked, what our military looked like. I mean, all our equipment was inferior to our enemy, the size of our forces, our organization, our tactics. Three and a half years later, we were a superpower. We dominated in all those areas. Even in Vietnam, at the tactical level, we made adjustments and adaptations, and, and we increased the size of the force to meet the commitment.

Although we’ve mouthed the words about this being a long war and a long struggle, the very forces that it places the greatest demand upon, our ground forces, our, our soldiers and Marines, we’ve seen no increase, no change, no adaptability on the battlefield. We’re still confused about the enemy. We’re, we’re, we’re stifled by the IED attacks and, and the problems we face. And, and these adjustments, over four years, have not been made. We have to ask ourselves why. What happened to transformation? Why was the design not right? What have we done to adjust? Our military, especially our Army and Marine Corps, are not going to be able to continue this kind of rotation. Traditionally you need three units for every one you have deployed. That’s the ideal, in terms of training, reconstructing the unit, the kind of quality time, the quality of life and family time necessary to rebuild the unit before it goes out. We’re down to almost one-to-one.

MR. RUSSERT: Realistically, how many American troops do you think will be in Iraq by the end of 2008?

GEN. ZINNI: Oh, I think by the end of 2008, you may see a slight reduction of what we have now, but I think it’s going to be pretty close to the same. I would say they may not all be in Iraq. We may see a realignment. We may go into a containment strategy that helps us control the borders. We may position troops where we can react under certain circumstances, where the rules of engagement would have us go after al-Qaeda, reinforce the Iraqis, probably, by then, extract ourselves, certainly, from any of the sectarian violence in the areas where it’s Sunni on Shia or, or places where the Iraqis should be taking the lead in, in dealing with it.

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You will find the rest on the MSNBC web site...not that I think you're interested in factual information, since everything you post here is false.

If you think that a belief that Saddam had WMD's, was the reason why Bush and Cheney came into office with a plan to invade and occupy Iraq, and that they actually did believe that was true before they invaded Iraq, I have no interest in debating anything with you. You say that Valarie Plame wasn't a covert agent, also, although her testimony under oath before the Senate Investigation Committee, sanctioned by the Director of the C.I.A., proves that she was, and that Libby and Rove and Cheney didn't set out to discredit Joe Wilson, you say lots of things that I know for a fact, are lies.

I don't take you seriously anymore, just like I dont take anything this <font color="red">misadministration </font color> says or does as being truthful, sensible, honest, or even intelligent, or reasonable. They shoved the inspecters out of Iraq, and launched a war on false premises, because they knew the Congress would never support a WAR in IRAQ, they tried to link it to 9/11 and their War On Terror, which they created themselves, then they turned right around and blamed the C.I.A., which had tried to convince them over and over that Saddam was NOT a threat, and so say dozens and dozens of former C.I.A. Agents, and journalists, who have interviewed many of the people who were in the loop at the time and many of the people in Government, who witnessed Dick Cheney creating his own cabal of intelligence people to slant evidence to his liking. We're not talking about one or two, or even one dozen, the evidence is overwhelming, and YES, OIL, money in the pockets of their corporate cronies, the years old wishes of those from the American Enterprise Institute, which is financed by Big Oil, future money payback deals for themselves, and loads of other ego issues that George bush had and has with his father, but NOT Because they thought that Saddam had nuclear weapons, or WMD's. They knew damn well he didn't. Hence, they pressured and pressured the C.I.A., the Pentagon, the British Government, and tried to link Saddam to alqaeda, another LIE. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they didn't arrange for the phoney Niger Documents, themselves, and also, Armetege was among the signers of the Project For The New American Century, the letter which was sent to Clinton damanding that he occupy Iraq, IOW, tha fact that he, Armetege, was among those in the loop with this administration who outed Plame, proves the conspiracy further.

Hence, regardless of how you twist things, we are where we are, in the middle of a mess, having ruined twenty to thirty years of progress in the Middle East, thanks to your boy George and his treasonist pals in the White House. Obviously, General Zinni, and many other Generals, all know what a colossal mess this administration has created, and although the Bill the Democrats are pushing is constantly miscontrued in the press, they're intention is to remove our troops from the midst of a sectarian civil war slaughter in Baghdad, and re-deploy them to fight the realatively small number of alqaeda which have infiltrated thinks to Bush, in the some surrounding areas, continue to train and resource Iraqis, and support those Iraqis who are willing to fight for their own government and freedom. Our people should not be expected to give their lives just because George Bush and his administration have no understanding of what the hell they're doing, and refuse to listen to those who do know what the hell they're doing. We've had six years of their incompetence, and lost thousands of American and Iraqai lives, and YOU want to agrue with ME about WHO is to blame???? Pahleeeze! Bush has made the terrorists, AND Iran extremely happy. He has given them a way to strengthen, and organize. He has literally grown terrorism, all over the world, created not one, but two training grounds for them, Afghanistan and Iraq, and destroyed every single advance the west had made before his dumb ass ever left Texas. He's a liar and an idiot. The Arab Nations have been abused and exploited before by the West, over and over again, the Western Nations, including ours, and great Britian, have occupied their countries, killed their women and children, sent them arms to fight our own causes, promoted uprisings and then deserted them to be slaughtered by the same cut throats, and THAT was all part of the birth of Islamist Radicalism. They didn't just get up one morning fifteen years or so ago and decide to start bombing in Western and European countries out of the blue. Does that make their barbaric tactics correct, or right? Hell no. Does acknowledging past mistakes that we and other countries committed mean that one is FOR the terrorists, or that America doesn't also do good things for other countries,...NO, and it also doesn't meant that those who speak the truth about history, love the terrorists, and anyone who suggest such a horrific point of view, is as far from American, as I can imagine, and the includes YOU!

Gayle in Md.

Bobbyrx

04-18-2007, 09:11 AM

Again, from your post:
"Iran has abided by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has never cited Iran for diverting its civilian programme to military use. For the past three years IAEA inspectors have said that they have been allowed to "go anywhere". The recent security council sanctions against Iran are the result of Washington's bribery."

You posted this. This is a quote from your original post. I don't know how you accuse me of twisting anything when all I'm doing is taking part of your post and asking is this what you believe. Yes or no

Gayle in MD

04-18-2007, 09:31 AM

No that isn't what you did. You accused me of saying that terrorists were not guilty, and that we were completely at fault for the horrible things they do. I did not say that. That was your version of what I said.

Actions taken in the Middle East, by Russia, Great Britian, and the United States, not to benefit Arabs, but to get their oil, interfere in their regional politics, and occupy their lands, have led to what we face now. That is absolutely true through history. The radical elements which we now face, came about because of their reaction to actions that others have taken in their part of the world. They themselves have made that very clear. I'm not making value judgements, I'm simply stating the facts.

Gayle in Md.

Bobbyrx

04-18-2007, 10:10 AM

Quote Gayle:
"No that isn't what you did. You accused me of saying that terrorists were not guilty, and that we were completely at fault for the horrible things they do. I did not say that. That was your version of what I said."
<font color="blue"> No, I asked if you believed that, because that is what your original post is saying. If you don't believe it then why did you post it in the first place? </font color>

Gayle in MD

04-18-2007, 10:23 AM

That is not what my original post says. You obviously suffer from selective reading issues.

Do you think Bush would be in Iraq if it weren't full of oil? Do you think we have a right to occupy another country, for the purpose of regime changek, against our international agreements, and force our style of Government on another nation? Isn't that just what Hitler was trying to do?

Our troops, under severe stress, and over tired and stretched, caught in a losing battle, watching their friends be blown up, day after day, in the same ways, have killed innocent Iraqis, and innocent Afghans, we also killed innocent Vietnamese. You deny that? I apologize for calling you a jerk. That was the wrong thing for me to do.

Gayle in Md.

eg8r

04-18-2007, 10:23 AM

She did not actually read it and sit down and try and comprehend what it was really saying.

eg8r

Gayle in MD

04-18-2007, 11:37 AM

Right, like you comprehend anything, ever? I read it, and I answered it, twice. You're the last person in the world who should be accusing anyone of comprehension problems.

Gayle in Md.

LWW

02-19-2012, 09:21 AM

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: pooltchr</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Bobbyrx,
You are wasting your time. Gayle has made up her mind that GW is the cause of all the ills in the world, and anyone who opposes him must be one of the good guys. This is the mentality of the extreme left. Support anyone who doesn't support the administration. 9/11 was his fault. Global Warming is his fault. Poverty is his fault. Hurricane Katrina was his fault. Get rid of him, and all the problems of the world will magically disappear.
Her backing of power hungry like-minded liberals like HC and Nancy give a pretty clear indication of how she thinks.
She just regurgitates the same old BS that the liberal left-wing whacko's spew every chance they get.
I only wonder if she will ever see the destruction they cause when they are in power.
Steve </div></div>

Don't forget that Bush ordered the assassination ... without trial ... of a US citizen.